2017-02-23

Fighting Censorship and Snooping With Encryption App Signal

Signal is Most Secure Messenger, 'Useless Data' Obtained by FBI Proves It All

Video above published Oct 11, 2016: Open Whisper Systems is also the force behind the Signal Protocol that powers the encryption built into #WhatsApp, #Facebook #Messenger, and #Google Allo's Incognito mode.

Egypt keeps trying to block Signal, inadvertently blocking all of Google, and having to stop as a result. We'll also expand domain fronts. https://t.co/Gb7ulEDQyk

Signal is a free and open source software application for Android, iOS, and Desktop that employs end-to-end encryption, allowing users to send end-to-end encrypted group, text, picture, and video messages, and have encrypted phone conversations between Signal users. Although Signal uses telephone numbers as contacts, encrypted calls and messages actually use your data connection; therefore both parties to the conversation must have Internet access on their mobile devices. Due to this, Signal users don’t incur SMS and MMS fees for these type of conversations. On Android, Signal can replace your default text messaging application, so within Signal it is still possible to send unencrypted SMS messages.--eff.org

Signal is an encrypted instant messaging and voice calling application for Android and iOS. It uses the Internet to send one-to-one and group messages, which can include images and video messages, and make one-to-one voice calls. Signal uses standard cellular mobile numbers as identifiers and end-to-end encryption to secure all communications to other Signal users. The applications include mechanisms by which users can independently verify the identity of their messaging correspondents and the integrity of the data channel ... Signal is developed by Open Whisper Systems. The clients are published as free and open-source software under the GPLv3 license. The server code is published under the AGPLv3 license.--Wikipedia.org

Signal’s new anti-censorship feature uses a trick called “domain fronting,” a versatile censorship circumvention technique that hides the remote endpoint of a communication. Domain fronting works at the application layer, using HTTPS, to communicate with a forbidden host while appearing to communicate with some other host, permitted by the censor.